I'm a woman and my cholesterol is 240. My doc wants to put me on a statin. What should I do?
Statins lower cholesterol, but there's absolutely not a shred of evidence- anywhere- that lowering cholesterol in women extends life or protects against heart disease. (In fact, the only group statins seem to help- a little- is middle aged men who have already had a heart attack.)
The whole issue of cholesterol is one of the most widely misunderstood in the whole of medicine and nutrition, muddied up even more by the fact that statins are blockbuster drugs (the top two alone generated nearly 20 billion dollars in 2005) and there's a huge commercial pressure to get as many people on them as possible. But consider this: fully half the people with high cholesterol have no heart disease, and half the people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol. There's a lot more to heart disease risk than just cholesterol.
Even the issue of "good" and "bad" cholesterol is turning out to be way more complicated than was first believed. We now know there are 7 types of LDL ("bad") cholesterol and about 5 types of HDL ("good") cholesterol, and they have very different effects on the body. And there's good reason to believe that the side effects and potential problems with statins are way underreported.
Remember that cholesterol is the parent molecule for vitamin D and for your sex hormones. I'm not at all sure that reducing it to the lowest possible number is a good idea for men, and I'm almost certain it's not a good idea for women.
One good thing that statins do is lower inflammation. But you can do that quite effectively with fish oil, and with the natural anti-inflammatories found in vegetables and fruits like cherries.
The whole issue of cholesterol is one of the most widely misunderstood in the whole of medicine and nutrition, muddied up even more by the fact that statins are blockbuster drugs (the top two alone generated nearly 20 billion dollars in 2005) and there's a huge commercial pressure to get as many people on them as possible. But consider this: fully half the people with high cholesterol have no heart disease, and half the people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol. There's a lot more to heart disease risk than just cholesterol.
Even the issue of "good" and "bad" cholesterol is turning out to be way more complicated than was first believed. We now know there are 7 types of LDL ("bad") cholesterol and about 5 types of HDL ("good") cholesterol, and they have very different effects on the body. And there's good reason to believe that the side effects and potential problems with statins are way underreported.
Remember that cholesterol is the parent molecule for vitamin D and for your sex hormones. I'm not at all sure that reducing it to the lowest possible number is a good idea for men, and I'm almost certain it's not a good idea for women.
One good thing that statins do is lower inflammation. But you can do that quite effectively with fish oil, and with the natural anti-inflammatories found in vegetables and fruits like cherries.
Jonny Bowden, PhD, C.N.S. is a nationally known expert on weight loss and nutrition and is the author of several best-sellers.
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